tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419444332771213285.post3669114330854504033..comments2016-12-06T22:36:18.710-08:00Comments on Caltrain HSR Compatibility Blog: Focus on: Menlo ParkClemhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01374282217135682245noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419444332771213285.post-15266972501294869122008-12-06T12:39:00.000-08:002008-12-06T12:39:00.000-08:001. Headspan structures are a huge mistake.Pantogr...1. Headspan structures are a huge mistake.<BR/>Pantograph failure on one train can take out four tracks. Maintenance is made hugely more complicated, both by the extra knitting and by the difficulty of working alongside active tracks.<BR/><BR/>The correct solution when ROW is abundant (which it is, by all real-world comparative standards, at Caltrain) on triple/quadruple plain track is to erect stanchions between pairs of tracks and with support brackets to each side.<BR/><BR/>2. Central express tracks with flanking local tracks are a huge mistake.<BR/><BR/>The fast tracks should flank the locals to the outsides fast/slow/slow/fast (or alternately be paired fast/fast, slow/slow, but that's not applicable for the Caltrain ROW in my opinion.)<BR/><BR/>The correct solution at local stations is a SINGLE island platform between the central slow tracks. This has the immense advantages of minimizing station furniture and infrastructure (vending machines, shelters, canopies, stairs, elevators, etc, etc); providing a more secure feeling safety-in-numbers environment for waiting passengers; and most importantly of enabling <B>straight-forward</B> and <B>delay-free</B> rescheduling possibilities to operate trains on "wrong" tracks for whatever operational reason (damage, delay, failure, maintenance.)<BR/><BR/>With outside boarding platforms a rescheduled train results in passenger inconvenience and in passenger and train delay for to change platforms.<BR/><BR/>3. At major stops, a pair of island platforms situation between the same-direction fast and slow tracks provide extremely convenient transfer possibilities while still, given appropriate track and signalling, allowing flexibility in rescheduling and maintenance.<BR/><BR/>99. Caltrain doesn't need ANY -- absolutely NONE -- quadruplication south of Redwood Junction and north of Santa Clara anyway.<BR/><BR/>After all, the only sane way to mix different traffic classes (HSR, local) is the way <I>everybody else in the world does it</I>, namely to segregate them ASAP. In Caltrain's case, for geographic reasons, the first available place to do so is at Redwood Junction heading southbound from SF. The situation is much better in San Jose, where HSR tracks can leave the Caltrain ROW immediately after departing San Jose Diridon Memorial Inter-Galactic Terminal for Fremont.<BR/><BR/>Nobody would be so <I>utterly stupid</I> and <I>ignorant of basic rail engineering and scheduling principles</I> as to propose to have fundamentally incompatible and independent traffic classes interfere with each other for over 100km of line, would they?<BR/><BR/>I mean, that would go against the precedent of <I>every single HSR construction project in every single location on the planet</I>!<BR/><BR/>Alternately, perhaps our Kopp/Diridon brains trust could have saved those stupid ignorant French-contaminated British from spending billions building that whacky CTRL2 thing right into St Pancras when running on local train ROW for many tens of miles is so much better. And better for the environment!<BR/><BR/><BR/>Anyway, lose the four-track, express-central, platforms-outside cross sections. Just because people who don't know what they're talking about (ie America's Finest Rail Professionals) show this stuff in their cartoon planning doesn't mean you have to make the same obvious mistakes.Richard Mlynarikhttp://www.pobox.com/users/mly/noreply@blogger.com